christmas is over!

Where did the time go?! It seems like I anticipated christmas forever and then it was over in the blink of an eye. Well, time to start planning for next year I guess ;). Lacey was such a hoot this christmas. She had sooo much fun unwrapping gifts and her new word is 'more' so everytime she got done with one gift, she was on to the next. Except for her amazing gift I talked about in my last post about the barn and horse stable. Santa brought these gifts so they were set up around the tree when she woke up. She didnt even care about her other gifts to unwrap at this point! It included, the doll house, barn, horse stable, a corral, tractor, cows, dogs, cats, horses a lamb and pig, pretty much everything you could think of! My dad mentioned something saying it probably would have been cheaper to just buy her a real homestead lol probably!

This is what it looked like before she woke up....

And this was the aftermath! That's what christmas is all about right? Making a mess!

This was her first reaction to the barn, 'lets just huuuuggg'

Opening the horse stable

These are too cool! A block set that makes a barn and chicken coop of course, from Melissa&Doug. If you haven't seen their line of toys, take a look! They have become my favorite for her, made of real wood, not plastic crap and their built to last! Melissa and Doug

 

Look at that cute little smile!

What's in there?!

We tried to fit everything in her room as well as we could, but she already has so much stuff! In our new home, she can have her own farm room :)

How lucky am I to have such an amazing christmas?! And my hubby decided to spoil me and surprise me with a new Samsung galaxy note! (Which I'm typing on now hehe) at first I considered bringing it back, I wasn't super into it but its totally growing on me. And with our up and coming move into a travel trailer on the in-laws property, I think I will be able to find plenty of things to do on it ;)

 Now that christmas is over and done with, it's time to start planning for the next holiday, and the next and the next. But the most important thing of all coming up is miss lacey's birthday! I can't beleive shes going to be two years old! Where does the time go?! I havent totally decided what were going to do for her birthday yet, of course last year for her first birthday, we had a big bash, but this year is a little different considering our moving situation, we have to be out of our house right around the same time of her birthday. Inviting people over to an empty house might not be so much fun lol. My thoughts lately have been to cruise over to Seattle for a little family day and maybe visit Build-a-Bear workshop and the aquarium or something,  I'm not sure yet. But just because kameron and I are going through a busy time doesn't mean she cant have a little Lacey day! He, of course, wont care either way what we do, Seattle is probably not on the top of his list, but hey, like I said its lacey's day! What are your thoughts on a two year olds birthday party? We're not even sure what we should get her yet! Oh the wonderful joys of parenthood :)

let it snow, let it snow!

This morning, while Kameron woke up for work, I woke up to see snow blanketing our back yard and I felt so excited I didn't even want to go back to sleep! I hardly ever wake up when he does, so he was like, "what the heck are you doing up right now?" lol. we rarely get to see the snow stick around here so I was excited, ok?! Of course right when Lacey woke up, we had a fast breakfast and headed outside. I'm not sure she has actually even been in the snow before? I mean, she saw it last year, but I doubt she still remembers it! Needless to say, she was pretty excited! When I told her there was snow outside, she was running in between all the windows in the house, making sure it wasn't going away. So cute! I stalled our dog Bailey from going out potty until we were ready to go out, she's only a year old so this is her first snow too! I wanted to see her reaction as well as Lacey's. And fun was had by all! Just wish Daddy was here to enjoy it with us, oh well, he'll be here this afternoon ;)

our back yard! as much as we hate those damn maple trees, they sure look pretty in this weather 

look at how cute her little boots are! 

looks like more snow is coming!

my little snow baby 

she wanted to eat it! lol guess I'll have to teach her about yellow snow

Hopefully the snow sticks around for at least a few days this time! I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...

DIY christmas crafts!

This time of year always has me searching for cute, homey diy decor, but also easy and fast since I have a two year old to keep out of things. These are super simple, affordable, adorable crafts that I have around my house this year! If you have any questions, feel free to ask, I'd love to help!

The first one is so easy! A mason jar snow-globe. I used a Ball Mason jar, went to the dollar store and got the cute frosted trees, a bag of fake snow at Joann's and closed it with a scrap piece of burlap!

This fake christmas tree sits in our bay window for passer-bys to see. It's made out of a metal tomato cage, I bought a 15ft garland from walmart for ten bucks and started wrapping! I started at the top and worked my way down, it gets a little spacey or bunched up in some spots but once you get it all wrapped, you can slide it around to fill in spots or space it out. Then I just took a regular ole strand of clear lights, wrapped to my hearts desire and took a scrap piece of burlap and wrapped that around too as a garland and voila! So simple!

When we hung our stockings this year, we hung them below a giant mirror in my living room. It really looked plain and boring so I decided to whip up something that only ended up taking about 30 minutes! I cut out a piece of burlap (if you can't already tell, I'm obsessed with this stuff) into a pennant shape and then used that as my template for the others. Once I had them all cut, I just used regular craft paint in white and hand painted some letters on there. Waited about five minutes for them to dry and then threaded a piece of jute through each one and there you have it! Super simple fast projects that add a little something to your holiday decor'. Hope you enjoy! 

it's the most wonderful time of the year!

With Christmas around the corner, literally only six days away, what have you finished and still need to do? I think I can actually say I'm totally done shopping! Except for my dad of course, he's one of those people that already has everything he wants, and if he doesn't, he'll go out and get it himself. Just the other day, I asked him what he wanted and he mentioned wanting a tablet to surf the internet, facebook etc and I thought, hmm, that sounds like a perfect gift idea! I did some searching online and found one I thought would be perfect for him and not two hours later, he calls me and says he just bought himself a tablet! So annoying right?! So now I'm back to square one with him, uggh. We've been celebrating the 12 days of Christmas with Lacey, each night she gets to open a book and read it before bedtime. She loves it! This year is going to be so fun, she actually understands how to open the present and that there's something fun inside! I can't wait to see the look on her face when she opens something and it's not a stupid book! Haha! But I guess that's the joy in a soon-to-be two year old. She still enjoys books as gifts lol. I just love her!!

I've found myself struggling with what to get her as gifts. I think the reason it's been hard is because her birthday is only a few weeks later and I don't want her to be one of those kids that get a combined, "here's your christmas and birthday gift". With my birthday being in June, I was spoiled every six months and got an equal amount of gifts each time, and I want her to feel the same! A few things we have gotten for her so far include, an easel, she's really into coloring and pens right now, the cutest little playhouse for some play bunnies, new "big girl" utensils and cups/plates/bowls. And for her "big gift from Santa" she got the coolest set-up I wish I had gotten when I was a little girl. She inherited an amazing dollhouse from her Aunt Denise that it seriously incredible. It has every little piece of furniture imaginable, I actually think I might play with it more than her, hehe. 

Isn't that the coolest little thing ever?! Grandpa got her a barn and horse stable to match so she can have her own little farmhouse and animals. So cute! I'll make sure to get pictures of the whole setup that "Santa" brings on Christmas Eve. Have you finished all your shopping!? Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year!

here we are again

i really need to keep up on this! lol. so much has changed since my last post! Kameron is back at home from working out of town, at the time it seemed to drag on and on, but of course, I survived and he's with us each night again, yay! Halloween came and went, I was so impressed by how well Lacey did with the whole thing, she's getting to an age where she starts to get scared at weird things so I was super nervous to bring her downtown to all the festivities. I was imagining myself to be that mom, you know the one with the screaming kid that you have to rush to your car as fast as you can? But! It went awesome! There were a few times I could feel her little fingers grip the back of my arm in fear but no crying or anything! We ventured out with a friend of ours, Rae Anne and her young daughter Hadley. How cute are they?!

 

These girls have no choice, they are destined to be best friends while growing up! Which leads me to my next "big" thing that is changing for us! We recently decided to move forward with our live and stop settling for just renting our house, we went out on a whim and bought a piece of property! Woo Hoo! It's five acres on the outskirts of town, high enough in elevation to get a dusting of snow each year, yet still close to town for errands and such. It really is so perfect for us! Here we are, our first picture!

As you can see from the picture, it's literally just land. Nothing else. It's fully timbered and is going to require sooo much work, and lucky for my hubby, that's right up his alley. (he he) Thankfully,he has the ability to do almost all of the work himself which will save us time and money! cha-ching! We're starting this whole process, so I can only imagine what's to come and to be quite honest I don't even want to think about it, haha. Back to the beginning of this tangent, yes, these girls will be best friends forever! Rae Anne and her husband are looking to buy the peice of property right across from ours! How fun will it be for Lacey and Hadley to grow up together!? The thought brings a smile to my face!

such a baby today!

today marks the first day kameron will be working out of town all week for two months! i know, im such a baby and shouldn't be complaining, there are plenty of people out there who have to wait to see their husband or significant other for months, but i've literally only been away from him for a maximum of two days the entire time we've known each other. really missing him and its only the first night! i'm sort of glad that lacey is still so young though, i'm not sure she really understands that he's not here unless i say something about 'daddy'. so i now have all this free time while i'm not taking care of him ;)  i'm sure lacey will keep me plenty busy. we went to kam's parents for dinner this evening and when we got home she spun in circles for literally ten minutes straight lol. so of course im always doing something! without kameron here, it really makes me appreciate the little things he does for us and i know that he's only doing this because he loves his family so very much, what more could a girl ask for?! he blows me away more and more everyday!

i just can not get enough of our perfect family!

friday fun!

jeez, i'm already starting to slack on here again! it's my new years resolution is to keep up on everything on here, (oh wait, it's way past new years) lacey is doing very well, she has a total of twelve, yes 12!, teeth and it's been a long few weeks with those babies coming in. it's only 3:30 and we've already done so much today! firstly, nap time around here is usually not until around 1 p.m. and around 10 a.m. she laid on the living room floor for her 'quiet' time and ended up falling asleep! She's never ever fallen asleep like that and it was completely out of no where, but boy was it cute!

after her little siesta we had some sensory play! she's such a girl about touching things so it takes some warming up to get her to actually touch the stuff in the bins, and of course she has the attention span of a 17 month old, so it only lasts about ten minutes, but it was worth it!

in the bins, i just threw in some uncooked rice, uncooked spiral noodles, cooked spaghetti noodles, some farm animals and of course her barbie Chloe. very inexpensive activity that she enjoyed, but be careful, i had rice flung all over my living room!

i think tomorrow we'll try playdough, i'm a little nervous because she's still in the stage of putting everything in her mouth, but i would imagine it wont taste too good, so maybe she'll break the habit :)

The past few days

Haven't been on here for a few days, haven't been doing much since our Mother's Day expedition. Lacey has been just as crazy as ever, running around and getting into everything! Literally everything, she pulls everything out of every cabinet, throws it all over the floor and then she's on to the next thing. At least play with the damn stuff! Lol. And she has three teeth coming in to add to the emotional mix, one on each side on top, molers, and another bottom front left tooth. That makes nine teeth! Holy chompers! 

 We're gettin ready for our trip to eastern wa this weekend to see my aunt and uncle. This will be Lacey's first "vacation" and let me tell you, I'm a little nervous for the drive. It's only about 5 hours, but that's still about four times longer than she's gone before lol. We went and got her a new swimsuit, sunglasses and life jacket yesterday and she loooves the life jacket. She's been packing it around all day since we got it 

She's ready folks!

Mother's Day!

My goodness, I was definitely spoiled this last Sunday and was blessed to spend my entire day with my family. We decided we'd take a day trip to the Seattle aquarium, so we made the 845 am ferry to Seattle and got into the aquarium right at 930 when they opened. 

Lacey didn't quite know what to think of all the fish. She's getting to this stage where she's starting to understand fear, and I've honestly never seen that from her before. A few of the fish got a little too close for comfort and I could feel her tiny little fingers clinching the back of my arm lol

My goodness she's so cute!

She started to get a little sleepy towards the end of the aquarium, she started spacing out on a waterfall exhibit lol (which who can blame her, we woke the poor girl at 630) 

After we finished up at the aquarium, it was still only like 11:00 am, so we figured, what the heck, might as well venture on up to the woodland park zoo!

On our way, we stopped and had lunch at Red Robin, Kameron had never eaten there and Lacey was getting hungry. (It took us almost a half hour driving around trying to find the damn place, we asked "Siri" on my iPhone how to get there, she recommended a place that was only 2.8 miles from our current location, well that took us twenty minutes only to find this place was an old Red Robin, had been closed for some time, and had graffiti all over the building. Thanks Siri) we eventually made it to the new restaurant and Lacey really enjoyed reading the menu with daddy. 

We have arrived at the zoo! (Doesn't she look enthused?) lol

Of course she wanted to be with daddy the whole time, someone had to be in charge of the camera and it surely wasn't him. Boy, do I love them! 

She didn't quite know what to think of the hippos, at least they couldn't get too close. (Which by the way, all these animals seemed like they could get out so easily)

Looking at those hippos

We got to see the giraffes pretty close to us. She thought those were pretty cool

She was determined to get a better view lol

The jaguar was quite a hit, even though I think this fell under the category of too close for comfort again 

The elephants were so cool! The picture does no justice. 

Looking at those huge animals. 

So weird seeing a wolf!

At this point in the trip, she started getting tired again, so out came the blanket and binky. (You'd be surprised how long it takes to get around to all these places, lots of walking for us, lots of riding in the stroller for her)

Then we saw the bears! This was definitely her favorite exhibit, I'm not sure why, but she didn't even need the binky anymore! That's saying something!

( ok , maybe she did need the binky a little bit longer, but who cares! Look at those precious tiny fingers! )

Our last exhibit was the elk, and we had to walk down a boardwalk to get to them, she was really sick of being in her stroller all day, so we let her walk on her own

She was on a mission to see those elk. Love her little walk!

Could she get any cuter?!

After the elk, we managed to get out of there and head towards the ferry. It ended up being a full day event and we didn't get home until about 730. It was such an amazing day and we can't wait to bring her again! I'm thinking next year, she'll be a lot more active and we'll have to get one of those backpack leash things. ( I promised myself i would never have a child wearing one of those, but geez they look so convenient!) can't wait for our next trip to the zoo! :)